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Some believe that free will is acheived through random aspects of quantum mechanics. This is particularly attractive to people who don't understand quantum mech

Some believe that free will is acheived through random aspects of quantum mechanics. This is particularly attractive to people who don't understand quantum mechanics. This man is now my personal hero. Suddenly I understand why so many bright people were drawn to work with McCarthy. :)

aswanson 19y ago
Ties in nicely with: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics"
- eyudkowsky 19y ago
  Um, no, that is a quantum mysterianism line. This might have been true in the days before anyone had the concept of macroscopic decoherence (popularly known as many-worlds) but quantum physics is pretty normal these days. See the recent series at Overcoming Bias.
  - aswanson 19y ago
    So, we have reconciled quantum mechanics and general relativity? We have put quantum mechanics on deterministic grounds? Many-worlds is accepted fact? Indeed I must check out overcoming bias....
    - sfk 19y ago
      Well said. I got the impression in this thread that some AI researchers are trying to beat physics into shape so that it would support certain views favorable to AI. [This is not to say that those researchers are unintelligent, just that a certain bias may exist.]
  - mechanical_fish 19y ago
    I really liked this one: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/on-being-decohe.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/on-being-decohe.html Of course, I have a Ph.D. in semiconductor lasers, so I've been trying to think about such stuff off and on for years... which means I'm a terrible test case for articles like this. ;)
  - byrneseyeview 19y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer ?
    - aswanson 19y ago
      Check his submissions; overcomingbias.com is one of the links.
      - marvin 19y ago
        The man behind the handle is probably Eliezer Yudkowsky, a researcher at SIAI who, among other things, run the annual Singularity Summit. In case anyone wants to know.
        byrneseyeview 19y ago
        Right. I was wondering why he appears to have two handles -- both using his name, both posting stuff related to his research.
        aswanson 19y ago
        I realized that after responding, my bad.
jderick 19y ago
Can someone explain this? It seems the connection between quantum mechanics and free will are being dismissed out of hand. However, this seems like a deep question that probably has no simple answer. Is this just a 'religious' issue? Or is there a simple explanation why there is no connection here..
- mnemonicsloth 19y ago
  Many of the people who ask this question don't really want an answer, because they're already committed to leaving "room" for an immaterial soul. So the simplicity of the answer depends mostly on the ideological commitment of the questioner. I'm game if you are, though. You might start by thinking about a modern digital computer. It's made up of a very large number of very small devices (transistors) that sling populations of electrons back and forth. The brain is made of a much larger number of less-small devices called neurons, that sling bigger populations of bigger objects (organic molecules) back and forth. So according to the basic understanding of QM that tells us relative indeterminacy increases when considering smaller objects, the functioning of the human brain is marginally more predictable than the insides of a modern computer.
- jward 19y ago
  Basically he's saying that 'quantum mechanics' is the scientific substitute for 'magic'. Most people know jack about it, just that it's really hard and explains weird things.
- as 19y ago
  Because quantum consciousness is a 'special sauce' theory analogous to what vitalism was in biology - the idea that biomechanical processes are not enough to account for life and that some magical 'vital principle' is necessary. Fueled by people with an emotional agenda, that debate went on for decades before being thrown on the same garbage heap as geocentrism.
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  The "simple" explanation is that lots of people think that quantum mechanics is nondeterministic. And it isn't. If you know the quantum state of a system at time X you can figure out what it will be at any time after that. People get confused because it's easy to look at a quantum mechanics problem from the wrong angle and see nondeterminism. We're really well trained in intuitive mechanics ("an electron is like a tiny tennis ball, and tennis balls are always either here or there, right?") so at first glance quantum mechanics seems wacky and random: the electron might be here, or it might be there, with equal probability, and we can't tell which! Whereupon your head explodes. Seriously: The discoverers of quantum exploded in horror, and they started ranting about that crazy cat in the box, or "God playing dice". (Colorful but misleading metaphors. One reason that Bohr and Einstein's early confusion persists today is that they were just so darned eloquent.) In fact, God does not play dice: God sees all the outcomes of the dice roll at the same time and doesn't understand why we think it's a game, and not a static work of art. People also think that nondeterminism is somehow an important ingredient in whatever it is we mean by "free will". This doesn't make much sense to me. If you want it to not make sense to you as well, read Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves. You might want to budget more than a couple hours for that book, though.
alexfarran 19y ago
I don't think you can dismiss Sir Roger Penrose like that. He may be wrong, but it's not for lack of understanding of quantum mechanics.
- radu_floricica 19y ago
  In his books he is rather humble about his knowledge of the subject. Yes, he proposes this hypothesis and supports it, but stops way short of "i know more then the specialists". It's a lot more like "from what i know, it seems very probable". I also think he's wrong, but at least he's not infatuated about it. edit: I love his books. Well worth the read, and for those concerned he puts his speculations in chapters very clearly marked "speculations". From his books I first learned the details about Turing machines and lambda calculus, and a lot more.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
  - alexfarran 19y ago
    The core of his argument is that humans can know truths that cannot be discovered computationally. If that is true then it implies two things 1. Conventional AI will never reach human levels of intelligence. 2. To understand how human intelligence works we need to discover new physics - most likely in the area of quantum mechanics. It all hangs, not on quantum mechanics, but on his initial assertion. I've read his explanation in Shadows of the Mind, but the lightbulb didn't go on for me. For McArthy to dismiss the question offhand was a little disappointing. I'd expect him to have a deeper insight.
    - dhs 19y ago
      I admire McCarthy a lot, but I'm with you there in being a bit disappointed. As for humans being able to know truths that cannot be discovered computationally, there is some evidence [1] supporting the hypothesis that animal brains do what they do using analogue information processing. So it may be that there are "thruths" which can only be "known" using analogue processes, in which case, as digital reasoners, computers would always remain at a disadvantage when compared against humans in terms of "intelligence". [1] Spivey, M., Grosjean, M. & Knoblich, G. (2005). Continuous attraction toward phonological competitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(29), 10393-10398.

aswanson 19y ago

Ties in nicely with: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics"

eyudkowsky 19y ago
Um, no, that is a quantum mysterianism line. This might have been true in the days before anyone had the concept of macroscopic decoherence (popularly known as many-worlds) but quantum physics is pretty normal these days. See the recent series at Overcoming Bias.
- aswanson 19y ago
  So, we have reconciled quantum mechanics and general relativity? We have put quantum mechanics on deterministic grounds? Many-worlds is accepted fact? Indeed I must check out overcoming bias....
  - sfk 19y ago
    Well said. I got the impression in this thread that some AI researchers are trying to beat physics into shape so that it would support certain views favorable to AI. [This is not to say that those researchers are unintelligent, just that a certain bias may exist.]
- mechanical_fish 19y ago
  I really liked this one: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/on-being-decohe.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/04/on-being-decohe.html Of course, I have a Ph.D. in semiconductor lasers, so I've been trying to think about such stuff off and on for years... which means I'm a terrible test case for articles like this. ;)
- byrneseyeview 19y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Eliezer ?
  - aswanson 19y ago
    Check his submissions; overcomingbias.com is one of the links.
    - marvin 19y ago
      The man behind the handle is probably Eliezer Yudkowsky, a researcher at SIAI who, among other things, run the annual Singularity Summit. In case anyone wants to know.
      - byrneseyeview 19y ago
        Right. I was wondering why he appears to have two handles -- both using his name, both posting stuff related to his research.
        aswanson 19y ago
        I realized that after responding, my bad.

jderick 19y ago

Can someone explain this? It seems the connection between quantum mechanics and free will are being dismissed out of hand. However, this seems like a deep question that probably has no simple answer. Is this just a 'religious' issue? Or is there a simple explanation why there is no connection here..

mnemonicsloth 19y ago
Many of the people who ask this question don't really want an answer, because they're already committed to leaving "room" for an immaterial soul. So the simplicity of the answer depends mostly on the ideological commitment of the questioner. I'm game if you are, though. You might start by thinking about a modern digital computer. It's made up of a very large number of very small devices (transistors) that sling populations of electrons back and forth. The brain is made of a much larger number of less-small devices called neurons, that sling bigger populations of bigger objects (organic molecules) back and forth. So according to the basic understanding of QM that tells us relative indeterminacy increases when considering smaller objects, the functioning of the human brain is marginally more predictable than the insides of a modern computer.
jward 19y ago
Basically he's saying that 'quantum mechanics' is the scientific substitute for 'magic'. Most people know jack about it, just that it's really hard and explains weird things.
as 19y ago
Because quantum consciousness is a 'special sauce' theory analogous to what vitalism was in biology - the idea that biomechanical processes are not enough to account for life and that some magical 'vital principle' is necessary. Fueled by people with an emotional agenda, that debate went on for decades before being thrown on the same garbage heap as geocentrism.
mechanical_fish 19y ago
The "simple" explanation is that lots of people think that quantum mechanics is nondeterministic. And it isn't. If you know the quantum state of a system at time X you can figure out what it will be at any time after that. People get confused because it's easy to look at a quantum mechanics problem from the wrong angle and see nondeterminism. We're really well trained in intuitive mechanics ("an electron is like a tiny tennis ball, and tennis balls are always either here or there, right?") so at first glance quantum mechanics seems wacky and random: the electron might be here, or it might be there, with equal probability, and we can't tell which! Whereupon your head explodes. Seriously: The discoverers of quantum exploded in horror, and they started ranting about that crazy cat in the box, or "God playing dice". (Colorful but misleading metaphors. One reason that Bohr and Einstein's early confusion persists today is that they were just so darned eloquent.) In fact, God does not play dice: God sees all the outcomes of the dice roll at the same time and doesn't understand why we think it's a game, and not a static work of art. People also think that nondeterminism is somehow an important ingredient in whatever it is we mean by "free will". This doesn't make much sense to me. If you want it to not make sense to you as well, read Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves. You might want to budget more than a couple hours for that book, though.

alexfarran 19y ago

I don't think you can dismiss Sir Roger Penrose like that. He may be wrong, but it's not for lack of understanding of quantum mechanics.

radu_floricica 19y ago
In his books he is rather humble about his knowledge of the subject. Yes, he proposes this hypothesis and supports it, but stops way short of "i know more then the specialists". It's a lot more like "from what i know, it seems very probable". I also think he's wrong, but at least he's not infatuated about it. edit: I love his books. Well worth the read, and for those concerned he puts his speculations in chapters very clearly marked "speculations". From his books I first learned the details about Turing machines and lambda calculus, and a lot more.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- alexfarran 19y ago
  The core of his argument is that humans can know truths that cannot be discovered computationally. If that is true then it implies two things 1. Conventional AI will never reach human levels of intelligence. 2. To understand how human intelligence works we need to discover new physics - most likely in the area of quantum mechanics. It all hangs, not on quantum mechanics, but on his initial assertion. I've read his explanation in Shadows of the Mind, but the lightbulb didn't go on for me. For McArthy to dismiss the question offhand was a little disappointing. I'd expect him to have a deeper insight.
  - dhs 19y ago
    I admire McCarthy a lot, but I'm with you there in being a bit disappointed. As for humans being able to know truths that cannot be discovered computationally, there is some evidence [1] supporting the hypothesis that animal brains do what they do using analogue information processing. So it may be that there are "thruths" which can only be "known" using analogue processes, in which case, as digital reasoners, computers would always remain at a disadvantage when compared against humans in terms of "intelligence". [1] Spivey, M., Grosjean, M. & Knoblich, G. (2005). Continuous attraction toward phonological competitors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(29), 10393-10398.